The Sleeping Nymph, page 37
Teresa was beginning to glimpse the occult message hidden beneath the surface of the painting.
“And see the halo here, so perfectly circular: Does it not remind you of the sun? And these angels with wings like falcons—are they not the strangest you’ve ever seen? Not to mention the depiction of baby Jesus at her breast: its features look like a baby girl’s.” He looked at them with a satisfied expression on his face. “Do you understand now? This image is telling us that God is a woman.”
“A goddess who begets goddesses,” Teresa murmured.
“And not an ordinary goddess, either: Isis, the Great Mother, goddess of fertility and of maternity, and queen of the Night. Sometimes known as Heqet: the Great Sorceress. Her animal was the falcon. The cult of Isis is a mystical practice, imbued with esoteric elements. Hence the dark skin. This isn’t Mary; this is Isis. Look at her: she’s a teenager carrying inside her the greatest power the world has ever known.”
“Paganism disguised as Christianity,” Teresa murmured. “For centuries, the faithful who came to the sanctuary to pray thought they were kneeling before the Virgin Mary, when in fact they were worshipping Isis.”
“Why the black veil over her face? A sign of mourning, perhaps?” Marini asked.
“Oh, no. Plutarch, the great philosopher and biographer, answers that question in De Iside et Osiride, when he tells us about the writing discovered in a temple in Memphis dedicated to the goddess. At the foot of a statue they found the following inscription: Ego sum omne quod fuit, quod est, quod futurum est. Velum meum nemo mortalium rilevavit. ‘I am all that was, all that is, and all that will be, and no mortal being has dared lift my veil.’ Some translate velum as tunic and interpret this as a reference to the goddess’s virginity. But in fact to lift the veil of Isis means to gain access to knowledge.”
Teresa studied the photograph of the icon once more, noticing the rich symbolism of its colors.
Red: the life-giving cycle.
White: the first light of life.
Blue: the connection to the divine.
Black: death and regeneration—the cult of ancestors.
And finally, the background—green: the knowledge of plant life.
These were the colors of female shamans.
91
“They want to erase my bloodline,” Krisnja had said.
Teresa couldn’t stop thinking about the words the girl had uttered as she’d stood before the tomb of her grandmother, Ewa. Now that Teresa knew the secret symbology of the lost icon, those words seemed even more ominous than before. Some kind of occult force was sweeping through the valley. People were often ready to die for what they believed to be holy. And usually they were also prepared to kill.
“She’s still here,” Teresa muttered as she looked around the forest where Blanca, Smoky and the rest of the search team were scouring the riverbank for signs of Ewa’s remains.
Once they’d cleared that area, they would move farther into the woods.
“Who’s still here?” Marini asked.
“The image of Isis. The icon was never lost.”
“You think Francesco lied to us again?”
Teresa shook her head.
“No, he told us the truth. He told us what he remembers. But I think someone else must have found it and has been worshipping it ever since—right here in the valley.”
“Cam?”
“Perhaps. But he’s dead now.”
“There are too many missing bodies in this case already. Will we have to open his tomb up, too?”
Teresa very much hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“But why kill?” Marini continued. “The cult of Isis is predicated on peace and fraternity.”
“So is Christianity.”
“I’m still not seeing the connection to Emmanuel Turan’s killer.”
“Emmanuel is the connection. He’s the link between Aniza’s death all those years ago and the present. He must have witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to see. A secret.”
Marini’s phone vibrated.
“It’s de Carli,” he announced.
He put the phone to his ear and as he listened, his face fell.
“Francesco’s reported Krisnja missing,” he told her after he’d hung up.
Like her great-aunt Aniza, Krisnja had walked into the forest and not returned.
But this time we’re here to look for her. And we’re going to find her.
That was the promise Teresa had made to herself as she had summoned all the personnel who’d been searching the forest to the spot where Krisnja had last been seen.
“I saw her from my bedroom window,” a rattled Francesco kept saying. “The sun wasn’t up yet. Krisnja took the usual path. She was only wearing a jumper over her pajamas. And trainers. And then she disappeared into the trees.”
“Didn’t you call for her?” Marini asked him.
“No. She goes out after her cat sometimes; he’s always disappearing and she worries. She keeps a close eye on him. There are foxes here and sometimes they come all the way up to people’s homes. Given what she was wearing, I was sure she’d only be gone for a few minutes.”
“But?”
“But then half an hour ago, I went over to see her, and the front door was wide open. She’d left the gas on, and there was a pot of coffee burning on the stove. She must not have returned. Something’s happened to her.”
His panic seemed real enough.
Parisi and Blanca were walking toward them, Smoky leading the way with his tail wagging merrily. As they approached, Blanca reached out and called Teresa’s name.
“I’m here,” Teresa replied, clasping the girl’s hand.
She pulled Blanca closer so they could speak without being overheard.
“Krisnja’s disappeared,” she told her. “I need you to help me find her.”
Blanca leaned closer.
“You know it’s blood we track,” she whispered. Did Teresa think Krisnja was already dead?
“Help me find whatever’s left of her,” Teresa replied through gritted teeth.
Blanca nodded and called Smoky to her side.
“Take me to where she was last seen,” she said.
Marini took her hand and placed it on his arm, and together they climbed down the slope toward the path into the forest, taking Francesco with them.
“This is where I last saw her,” he was telling them through shaky breaths. “When I figured out she wasn’t home, I ran here, then kept going for another three hundred feet or so.” He paused. “But then I realized I’d never find her. So I went back and called you. It’s like the night Aniza disappeared,” he murmured.
Teresa couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“I’ll manage on my own from here,” said Blanca, letting go of Marini’s arm.
“Be careful.”
Marini watched her closely, keeping an eye over every step she took.
Smoky went off immediately in a different direction from the one Francesco had initially suggested.
“She can’t have gone that way,” he protested. “Krisnja would never have ventured in alone—not at that time of day, and not dressed like that.”
“Maybe she was following the cat, like you said,” Teresa pointed out.
Francesco shook his head.
“That critter’s got more of a survival instinct than I do. He’d never have gone so deep into the woods. There’s wild boar, there are foxes. I’ve seen owls with wingspans over three feet long: they would snatch him away in the blink of an eye.”
“She went this way,” Blanca insisted not unkindly.
“We’ll follow you,” said Teresa encouragingly.
Krisnja, it seemed, had soon left the path and gone deeper into the forest. They reached the edge of a cliff smothered in vegetation, where Smoky stopped in his tracks. He seemed agitated. Blanca tried to calm him down, but he wriggled away from her and threw himself farther into the woods.
Blanca seemed perplexed and perhaps even a little scared.
“He’s never done that before. He’s never left my side,” she said.
They could hear him yowling now, just farther down the slope.
Teresa called Parisi over.
“You stay here with her,” she told him, indicating Blanca.
Climbing down was tricky. Several times, Teresa tripped and almost fell over, but there was no way she was going to stand around and wait for Marini to go down there first. For his part, he made sure not to rush her, pausing so she could catch up and so that he could help her to get through the steepest parts.
Teresa could feel that Krisnja was down there somewhere—but more than that, she could sense that the case was about to take a sharp and irreversible turn.
The yowling was closer now. Teresa took the hand Marini offered her and clambered past a boulder attached to the cliff.
Smoky was standing a few feet ahead, staring anxiously at a spot among the trees.
It was a grisly scene.
Caught in a thicket of brambles, her face disfigured, her clothes torn to shreds, Krisnja seemed to be suspended in midair, her limbs laid out like the figure of Christ on the Cross. She was motionless and didn’t seem to be breathing. There was so much blood that it was difficult to distinguish her face.
Marini swore, then took off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He tried to push his way through the tangle of thorns, but the thick, sturdy branches seemed to form an impenetrable barrier that resisted every attempt he made to breach it.
He was forced to concede defeat.
“I’ll go and get help. We’re going to need a hedge cutter.”
Teresa walked closer to the trap nature had laid. There were traces of blood all over the thorny branches wrapped around the girl’s body and her head. She couldn’t have fallen into it; the cliff was at the opposite edge of the clearing and the trees around were all more than seventy foot tall.
Krisnja had walked into that hell herself.
But what could have scared her so much that she had felt compelled to try to wrestle her way through that tangle of barbed knots just to escape it?
A shiver coursed through the bloodied face before her and its eyes snapped open.
Krisnja was staring at her, pupils dilated, as if she could hear Teresa’s thoughts.
“The devil . . .” she whispered.
And then, as if she could still see it, right there in front of her, she screamed.
Inside the forest, the shadows had come alive. They had a scent, and a sound: a low growl.
Marini returned to find Teresa rooted to the spot, petrified, her eyes fixed on a point in the woods where a dark figure had retreated. It was still there, staring right back at her.
Her expression must have spoken for her. Marini went to check and when he turned around to look at her, Teresa realized there was nothing there—nothing but a figment of her own imagination.
It must have been a hallucination. She was surprised to find that in the circumstances, her illness was almost a comfort; the alternative was simply unthinkable.
92
“You can tell me now. What did you see in the woods?” Marini whispered.
They were standing in the hallway of the emergency ward, a few feet from the room where Krisnja was being treated.
Teresa looked up to find him staring at her, far too intently.
“You looked scared, Superintendent. Tell me what you saw.”
Teresa really had been terrified. For a moment she’d thought she had come face to face with hell—when really, it had been herself she’d seen, ravaged by her illness. Her doctor had confirmed as much when they’d spoken on the phone half an hour ago.
“Visual and auditory hallucinations are all part of the process,” she’d said. “You might find that your perception of reality is altered. You might look in the mirror one day and not recognize yourself, or forget that you’ve aged. You might glance at the shadow of a curtain and think it’s a person.”
“Like a ghost?” Teresa had asked.
“Possibly. Hallucinations are often accompanied by paranoid delusions: fears, phobias, a persecution complex.”
“What can I do?”
“It usually helps to talk about it. I always advise my patients’ families to help them reason through things, so that they can see for themselves that what they thought they experienced was merely an erroneous interpretation of reality. It’s important to keep the mind as nimble as possible.”
Teresa’s next question had been painful to utter.
“What if there’s no one I can talk to?”
“Then you’ve got to do whatever you can to cling to reason. Try to be even more methodical in your day-to-day life. Turn to logic. Question everything and dissect every event. You’ll have to save yourself.”
Nothing new there; I’m used to that, Teresa had thought.
“I saw a shadow,” she told Marini. “Nothing more. Was I scared? Of course I was. Anyone would have been scared down there on their own.”
Antonio Parri walked briskly to their side. He’d rushed to the hospital as soon as Teresa had told him what had happened and he’d quickly obtained the latest on Krisnja’s condition from his colleagues. She was conscious, though in shock. Teresa hadn’t had the chance to speak to her yet.
“Her eyes are fine, thank goodness,” he told them.
“And her face?”
“Ravaged. There will be scars.”
Teresa had to look away.
“We’ve found significant levels of scopolamine and atropine in her blood,” Parri continued. “Alkaloid hallucinogens.”
“What’s their source?” Teresa asked.
“Biological. They can be extracted from the seeds and leaves of a common weed, the Datura stramonium, more widely known as the devil’s snare and often associated with witchcraft.”
Teresa and Marini exchanged a glance.
“It’s a plant with psychotropic properties, like opium, mandrake and the blue lotus. Historically, it’s often been used for its medicinal properties; it can relieve the symptoms of bronchial asthma, for example. But an overdose can cause paralysis of the respiratory organs and a slow, terrible death by suffocation.”
“Someone drugged the girl. That’s what was causing her hallucinations,” Teresa remarked.
“She’s been saying that someone wanted to erase her face,” Parri reported. “And she keeps talking about an evil presence of some sort. She really is convinced she saw the devil. Anyway, the doctors want her to rest for a few hours. I told them you’d be fine with that.”
Teresa nodded, feeling wearier than she would have liked to admit.
They were just hallucinations. Yours and hers. There was no evil presence.
“The dosage at which the effects of alkaloid hallucinogens are triggered is actually very close to the toxic level,” Parri noted. “So whoever it was who drugged her certainly knew what they were doing.”
“Or they wanted to kill her,” Teresa murmured.
She thought of female wisdom, of the art of using plants and herbs to save a life. Or to end it.
93
The search warrants had finally come through. Teresa never enjoyed marching into people’s homes and prying into their lives, having officers pull out drawers and fling open cupboard doors to reveal a private world that would be forever altered by the intrusion. It was how you sniffed out evil, lured it out of whatever hole it had crawled into. But it was also a singularly invasive act—like a form of particularly aggressive surgery.
And sometimes, it was a mistake. You pried open a person’s life like a knife sliding into the shell of an oyster and cutting right through the muscle, only to find no trace of a black pearl inside.
Teresa felt like she was holding that blade now and severing what little was left of her connection with Francesco.
Ever since they’d turned up at his house bearing the judge’s orders, Francesco hadn’t uttered a single word. He’d stepped aside and allowed them to invade his habitat, huddled up on a chair at his kitchen table, his body curling inwards as if to take up as little space as possible. But his eyes burned with anger.
Teresa walked up to him, looking into his eyes. He hadn’t stopped watching her since she’d arrived.
“I should be in hospital,” he said. “With Krisnja.”
“We won’t be long,” she reassured him. “I just wanted to say that if I could have avoided all this, I would have. But Krisnja was poisoned, and we need to figure out how and when.”
“Then search her place.”
“We already are.”
“You won’t find anything here.”
I hope so, Teresa thought to herself. She needed to believe in this man, in the innocence his way of life projected. She needed to believe that the anguish he radiated wasn’t an act.
Perhaps he was a little prickly—but so was she.
Perhaps there were parts of his life he concealed—but so did she.
They weren’t so different, after all.
Marini pulled her aside.
“Our men are at Matriona’s door and ready to go in, but there’s no sign of her. She’s been unreachable for hours, though her lawyer’s been in touch. He’s been looking for her, too,” he told her. “Do you want to go ahead anyway?”
Teresa had no doubts.
“Have it put on record that it was urgent and that we made our best efforts to reach her. We’re looking for hallucinogenic substances. Herbal or otherwise—those are drugs. That in itself justifies a raid. Call the deputy prosecutor and let him know. And tell her lawyer he has half an hour to get there, if he wishes to be present. We’re going ahead.”
